


Vigil

by Princess of Geeks (Princess)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Buddy Fucking, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-07
Updated: 2010-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:03:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess/pseuds/Princess%20of%20Geeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Season 4's episode "Nemesis," Daniel and Paul discover they have something in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil

  
Daniel's imagination was stuck in a tape loop. No matter how many times he tried to gaze at his computer screen or flip open a file folder or a book, and read, the words seemed to float meaninglessly behind an image of a white glittering stream -- the dematerialized stargate, flying heavenward out of the gateroom in an Asgard beam.

Though he stuck it out at the SGC for a day and a night and a day after the gate disappeared, he made no progress on his research. During the wee hours, and during his midmorning slump, he catnapped in quarters or drowsed with his head on his keyboard. The second day, the backup gate was delivered and slowly lowered through the ceiling in a miracle of engineering and cable. The technicians swarmed it like ants on a Lifesaver.

At that, Daniel gave up all pretense of working. He parked himself in front of the conference room window, trying to be unobtrusive when a briefing was called behind him, and watched the bustle below until General Hammond kindly told him to take some time topside and come back no sooner than twenty-four hours. Daniel knew it was an order, even though the general phrased it as a "why don't you."

Daniel dutifully left the mountain. But he couldn't go home. He knew he wouldn't, couldn't, rest there. He drove around, feeling jumpy and distracted, stunned and somehow annoyed to discover that it was late afternoon, early evening really, on an ordinary Thursday, and finally he pulled into the parking lot of the sports bar Jack liked.

He eased himself inside and out of his jacket, sat on a stool, and ordered a drink. He leaned his elbows on the dark mahogany and tried to watch baseball. It was better than sitting at home alone. He played out the dialog he would be having if all the team were here; what Teal'c would say as Sam explained the rules, how Jack would smile and correct her when she made a mistake because she'd been remembering softball rules instead.

He realized that there was music coming from his jacket pocket. It was his cell phone. Sam was the only person who ever called him on it, unless it was an emergency at the mountain. His heart leaped. He fumbled it out of his pocket. The plastic felt cold to his touch, or maybe it was just his cold fingers.

"Daniel Jackson."

"Hello--it's Paul Davis."

"Oh! Oh. Is there any news?"

"They're a little closer to getting the new gate set up; Sergeant Siler figured out one major glitch that was left over from the Antarctica DHD connection."

"That's-- good."

"Just calling to check on you, make sure you heard the news about the bit of progress."

"Thank you, Paul."

"Anytime."

And Paul, crisp and professional, enunciating perfectly in East Coast, virtually unaccented, unemotional syllables, hung up without another word of farewell.

Daniel folded his phone and slipped it back in his pocket, wondering why Paul had bothered. It was no news, really. It was word of more delay, but spun expertly as progress. He supposed he appreciated the gesture; it was his team they were all waiting for, working for, praying for, and they all had to know how he felt. His worry had to be so very obvious. His hand strayed to his appendix scar, which felt itchy through his clothes.

It all made him feel very, very alone.

He ordered another drink.

On the big-screen television floating in the dark in a corner of the bar's ceiling, the inning was closing. And Paul slid on to the barstool beside Daniel.

Daniel's mouth fell open. "How did you--"

Paul looked a little sheepish, and a little pleased. He was in street clothes, not in uniform. "The GPS in your cell phone."

"But why?" The bartender approached, and Daniel changed direction. "Um, what are you drinking, Paul?"

"Ah, whiskey. Irish whiskey. Bushmill's Black, if you have it."

"A shot of Black Bushmill's straight up and another vodka tonic, Margie," Daniel said. He didn't drink whiskey for fun, but he even he knew that you didn't put ice or a mixer in Bushmill's Black. Then he turned to Paul and frowned. Paul had sought him out. Paul had come looking for him.

"They made it out through the gate; I'm sure of it. You have to be right," Paul said calmly, into his intense stare, and Daniel closed his eyes. The bartender placed their drinks at their elbows.

"Slainte," Daniel said, still frowning, and Paul, smiling knowingly, his expression going faraway for a moment, echoed, "Slainte."

Later, it was never clear to Daniel how they got from that toast to an impassioned argument over why Alexander's empire disintegrated after his death. Daniel blamed inevitable cultural centrifugal forces; Paul blamed poor leadership on the part of his designated successors.

But three-quarters of the way through the discussion, when the focus had shifted to a discussion of the values of the Ptolemaic era in Egypt, it became clear to Daniel that Paul was flirting with him. Paul was too animated, too happy given the dire circumstances at the mountain, too intently focused on Daniel's eyes, on his mouth. Too willing to give Daniel free rein to pontificate, to lecture. Too obviously, too ironically, enjoying Daniel's professorial turn.

Daniel stopped, realizing he too had been shifting his glance from Paul's green, intent eyes to his smiling, controlled mouth. They were mirrors now, down to their body language.

"Um. We're going to take this somewhere else," Daniel stated flatly into a pause. It was a non sequitur, and it was not a question but an acknowledgement of what was already happening.

Paul folded that mobile mouth in on itself, hooded his eyes, and pulled out his billfold to pay the tab.

Daniel let him, noticing he himself was fiddling with a napkin, tearing it to shreds one-handed. He let the fragments drop on the bar, next to the damp spot left by the glass of tonic he'd ordered to cut through the vodka fog, thinking vaguely at the time that he'd have to drive sooner or later and if they stayed much longer he'd have to order some coffee.

But instead, the tab was paid, and he followed Major Davis away from Margie's knowing stare, out into the cool dark -- followed Paul's lead to what was obviously an Air Force rental car, and let a now blank-faced Paul drive, to a soundtrack of execrable local radio, to his Air Force-rental room.

"Sorry," Paul breathed, as he turned the key and ushered Daniel in to the sterile, stale-smelling space. "The damn per diem; you know. It only covers --"

Daniel interrupted him, cutting to what he assumed was the inevitable chase. He turned before the door was even locked again, crowding Paul into the corner, put a heavy hand on his shoulder and lowered his mouth. Paul was a full three inches shorter.

Paul inhaled sharply, and then his hands were hovering on Daniel's shoulders and his mouth was alive.

"Lock the door," Paul gasped, seconds or hours later. They fumbled together to turn the deadbolt. And then, voiced and emphatic: "Now, we're not doing this here."

Daniel froze, his hands cupping Paul's buttocks despite being painfully crushed between Paul's body and the door. He tried to catch his breath, lick his lips. He couldn't have been wrong; couldn't have misread the electric atmosphere in the bar, nor the charged silence on the drive over, nor Paul's focused kissing. "You mean you only wanted a nightcap here," he tried to clarify. "Not--"

"I mean we're not doing this with you shoving me against the door, and I'm most emphatically not coming in my slacks, standing up," Paul said, crisp and eloquent as ever, and so Daniel, relieved, smiled and pressed his lips to Paul's neck for a few seconds. Paul clutched at his back, holding his breath.

Daniel let go and wheeled away. The room skittered in his lust-addled vision. He found the nightstand, where his glasses could rest. He found the second bed, for his jacket, his shirt and his undershirt. When he turned, applying his sweaty fingers to his fly, he found that Paul was already stripped and turning down the other bed. Paul put a knee up, and Daniel couldn't see anything else, suddenly, besides Paul's alert cock. He managed to shove his jeans and boxers down, peel out of his socks, and kneel on the bed too, grappling with Paul as Paul grappled with him, kissing like Paul's mouth was the water a man needed in the desert.

Once horizontal, they slowed down, touching and stroking and meeting each other's eyes, smiling with a kind of shyness that was not reluctant or ashamed in the least. They were only shy because they were new to each other.

When Paul inched his way down Daniel's body and put his mouth on Daniel's erection, Daniel had ghosty thoughts of questions to reaffirm consent, of reassurances about the passage of time since his last sexual encounter, about the frequency of his blood tests, but even as he drew breath Paul said, "I know; I know; hush," and then there was nothing but the blood-warm, soft humid space of Paul's mouth, and the pleasure he drew along Daniel's skin, stroke by careful stroke.

Daniel cried out when he came, pulsing without control for what seemed like a long time, and then Paul's lean frame was on top of him, Paul's hand was curled tenderly against his neck, and Paul pressed his hard dick into the soft hollow beside Daniel's hip, and held himself there with his free hand wedged between them. His weight was welcome, his gasps into Daniel's ear like music.

Daniel wrapped weak arms around Paul's back and closed his eyes and hung on. His shoves were rhythmic, then choppy. When he came, Paul wasn't loud, but he certainly was enthusiastic.

Later, with a reluctant groan, Paul peeled free from their mutual stickiness and rolled to his side, pressing close to Daniel as he lay on his back, more relaxed than he felt he had any right to be, drifting, released. Paul slid a hesitant arm across Daniel's chest, and Daniel reached and groped and closed his hand around Paul's bicep.

For a while, the only sound was their breathing.

Daniel turned his head. Paul's eyes were closed, his hairline sweaty. Even that small evidence of the break in Paul's always-perfect composure was enough to make Daniel smirk to himself, a quite inappropriate and almost hilarious joy bubbling in his chest.

This made no sense. This was perfect.

Daniel listened to his own breathing, listened to Paul's, watched his eyes move under their fragile lids.

When Paul lazily opened his eyes and Daniel once again felt his careful regard, Daniel said: "Irish whiskey?"

Paul's expression acquired a subtle but indisputable quality of "busted".

"It's, ah, it's a very long story," Paul said, meeting Daniel's gaze, choosing brazen over embarrassed.

And Daniel smiled, and stroked Paul's arm with his open hand, thinking of brown eyes and green eyes, and the power of ritual. The absolute necessity of small, essential cultural habits, like toasts. Like the tradition of keeping vigil.

"Slainte," Daniel whispered, and felt Paul smile.


End file.
